Con­cern over the rise in num­bers killed on our roads

Fa­tal­i­ties more than in dou­ble a sin­gle year

The num­ber of deaths on South La­nark­shire’s roads has more than dou­bled al­ready this year com­pared to 2015.

And they in­clude two deaths in Ruther­glen and Cam­bus­lang - the first in the area since De­cem­ber 2014.

On May 25, 60-year-old Fran­cis Mooney was trag­i­cally killed when the mo­tor he was driv­ing was crushed by a runaway dig­ger on Fern­hill Road.

And on July 9, Camp­bell McLuckie was struck by a car on Cam­bus­lang Main Street while rid­ing his mo­bil­ity scooter.

The 82-year-old, who was well-known around Cam­bus­lang with his dis­tinc­tive ‘PAPA’ reg­is­tra­tion plate, died 11 days later in Hairmyres Hos­pi­tal.

Ac­cord­ing to pro­vi­sional fig­ures from Trans­port Scot­land, across South La­nark­shire there have been nine fa­tal­i­ties so far in 2016, com­pared with four for the whole of 2015.

The most re­cent deaths in the area came on Au­gust 10 when two pals from Stone­house were killed in a col­li­sion with a lorry on the A723 at Muirhall Farm.

The num­ber also in­cludes a 19-year-old man who per­ished in a col­li­sion on the B7078 Carlisle Road/Draf­fen Road, near Larkhall, on April 1, and a 59-year-old male pedes­trian who died af­ter be­ing struck on Glas­gow Road, Blan­tyre, on May 14.

A 22-year-old man died af­ter a col­li­sion on the A702 at the A721 junc­tion, Dol­phin­ton, on May 21 and an 81-yearold man died af­ter the car he was driv­ing crashed on the M74 at junc­tion 9 Black­wood on July 2.

A 52-year-old man passed af­ter his fork­lift truck over­turned on Glen­burn Road, East Kil­bride, on July 8.

South La­nark­shire Coun­cil said it would be in­ap­pro­pri­ate to com­ment on road ca­su­alty fig­ures af­ter last week’s tragedy, and passed on its con­do­lences.

Head of roads and trans­porta­tion, Gor­don Mackay added: “We treat all such in­ci­dents very se­ri­ously and the re­duc­tion in road ac­ci­dent ca­su­al­ties is a pri­or­ity in our Lo­cal Trans­port Strat­egy.”

Po­lice Scot­land in­sisted it would con­tinue to ad­dress ar­eas of con­cern.

In­spec­tor Gra­ham Con­ner, Di­vi­sional Roads Polic­ing Unit, La­nark­shire, said: “Al­though the gov­ern­ment fig­ures for fa­tal road crashes in the La­nark­shire area show a fall on av­er­age be­tween 2004/2008 and 2011/2015, we can never be com­pla­cent about road crashes.

“In­deed, un­for­tu­nately, since April this year, there have al­ready been nine fa­tal­i­ties in the South La­nark­shire area alone and each one will have a dev­as­tat­ing ef­fect on fam­i­lies and the lo­cal com­mu­nity.

“Road polic­ing is a pri­or­ity for Po­lice Scot­land and we con­tinue to work closely with our part­ners to ad­dress lo­cal con­cerns and re­main com­mit­ted to in­flu­enc­ing road user be­hav­iour in an ef­fort to re­duce road ca­su­al­ties mak­ing Scot­land’s roads safer for ev­ery­one.”

Na­tional tar­gets are in place for re­duc­ing fa­tal ca­su­al­ties by 40 per cent by the year 2020. The 2015 fig­ure for road fa­tal­i­ties was the low­est ever recorded for South La­nark­shire and over­all ca­su­alty num­bers last year were 38 per cent lower than the base­line av­er­age for 2004-2008.

Vic­tim Camp­bell McLuckie from Cam­bus­lang died af­ter be­ing struck by a car while out on his mo­bil­ity scooter